Facebook Gets Groupon in Its Crosshairs with Local Deals

Facebook is testing a new local deals service that lets users buy deals on the social network and share them with friends. In Austin, Dallas, Atlanta, San Diego and San Francisco only.

Facebook is testing a new discount
service that allows people to buy deals on Facebook and share them with their
friends, the company's most direct assault yet on local deals giant Groupon.
The social network, which boasts more than 600 million
users, will test this service in Atlanta, Austin, Dallas, San Diego, and San
Francisco.

"We will test a new feature for our Deals product
that allows people to buy deals on Facebook and share them with their friends,"
Facebook said in a statement. "Local businesses will be able to sign up to
use this feature soon and people will be able to find Deals in the coming weeks."

Web-based local deals is a market startups such as Groupon and
LivingSocial have blown right open by cold-calling and visiting local
businesses to get them to mark down goods and services for the sake of
bumps in volume. Facebook, Google, Yahoo and others are looking to join
the fray.
Inside Facebook said Facebook is showing a special story in the News Feed suggesting that users
subscribe to updates for its new prepaid coupon service, and invite their
friends to subscribe.
Users may click a link to be whisked away to a new
subscription page for Deals which says that subscribers will soon get news
feed updates about local promotions.
Facebook users will be able to buy such coupons as "Unlimited
bowling with 6 friends for an evening for $60 (75% off)" or "Luxury
winery tour and 25% off all wine purchases for $50."
This new
instantiation is a departure from the existing Check-in Deals service, which
users access by checking into more than 20 participating
stores via Facebook Places from their Facebook for iPhone app.
Google March
10 launched a similar check-in deals
service for Android smartphone users for the South By Southwest Interactive
festival.
For the
duration of the show this week, Android smartphone users can check in to more
than 60 shops in Austin, Texas from the Google Latitude application to claim
deals.
With check-in
deals, Google and Facebook have joined Foursquare in dipping their toes in the deep
pool of mobile, local and social search.
Facebook's
move to expand Deals to directly compete with Groupon's socially oriented
deal-making follows Google's quiet testing of Offers, a similar service that offers
users discounts for claiming deals.
Facebook and
Google both want a piece of the action Groupon has cultivated with almost $1
billion in sales in 2010. Groupon isn't standing still, either.
While
Facebook and Google scramble to match its success, Groupon has teamed with Lions Gate Entertainment to
offer half-price tickets to its new movie "The Lincoln Lawyer," which
opens March 18.